Levelling the field? An exploration into the support and feasibility of implementing Equality Impact Assessments for fieldtrips
Department: Environment & Geography
Team: Adrian Gonzalez, Karan Parkhill, Daryl Stump, Michelle Barton, Vijay Wadhwani, Emily Harris, Matheena Arpon, Tommy Dunn
Summary
The Department of Environment and Geography (DEG) have comprehensively redesigned their programmes to bring solutions-based teaching and learning, sustainability, and equity and inclusivity into all of our teaching and learning activities. Training in the field is an essential component of geography and environmental science degrees but presents the department with unique challenges in ensuring that field delivery reflects the statutory legal requirements and the department’s value-based approaches. Equity Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) challenges and issues include supporting students with protected characteristics, such as physical access and medical needs (e.g. pregnancy), assisting students with caring responsibilities, privacy issues (including relating to gender identity), religious observance, learning needs relating to neurological diversity, and associated costs such as clothing for fieldwork that particularly impact students from low-income households. This project builds on the DEG previous T&L project success ("Exploring challenges and opportunities in the development of co-created green and inclusive fieldtrips") by seeking to critically explore the feasibility of implementing Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) in a university setting from the perspective of all students and staff to improve the inclusivity and accessibility of field trips. The ambition was that an institutional-wide process is developed that ensures barriers to the benefits of fieldtrip participation are understood, mitigated and removed wherever possible.